


you gotta live before you learn

by itsgameover



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:40:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27638345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsgameover/pseuds/itsgameover
Summary: Mark wonders if soulmates can truly mean perfect happiness.
Relationships: Mark Lee/Lee Taeyong
Comments: 11
Kudos: 74
Collections: Challenge #3 — soulmates





	you gotta live before you learn

**Author's Note:**

> Soulmates is such a wide topic, I had so many ideas and had to discard one that got too long way too quickly. This was written in one day and yet I loved it, felt so connected to my little Mark.  
> So I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. <3

_ Misfits is a company entirely dedicated to match people with their soulmates. How can someone be matched with their soulmate you say? Easy, some soulmates live in different places. From different cities to different continents, some people can’t find their other half nearby. In order to achieve perfect happiness, one must have their soulmate by their side. Misfit helps you achieve perfect happiness by reuniting you with your soulmate! _

Mark keeps a close eye on his phone’s screen. The Misfits App has just notified him that his soulmate has been found. He stares at it for a good ten minutes before screaming. It’s unconscious but it makes his father pop his head into the room, leaving only after he has heard the good news. 

‘ _ Lee Taeyong, Male, Born 07/01/95, South Korea. _ ’

“See?” Wendy says, smiling over the rim of her beer chop “You were so worried it was going to be an old man and it’s a lovely boy!”

Mark laughs, enjoying the buzzing noise of the small terrace restaurant, bright yellow fairy lights hanging from the posts in between tables. Wendy had invited him over, her dad being the owner of the restaurant. 

“Are you going to have to call him hyung?” She asks then, a mischievous smile on her lips. 

“Well, if he was raised in South Korea probably he would want that,” Johnny adds, dipping his fries in bbq sauce. Johnny, who pretty much lives in the restaurant, didn’t even require an invitation for the get together. 

Mark ponders the nature of soulmates in silence, eating his burger one bit at a time, trying to be a good friend and chat with Wendy and Johnny whenever they direct the conversation at him. He would ask his friends if it’s true that soulmates bring true perfect happiness, but he knows the answers. 

Wendy had been dating Seulgi ever since she found out they were soulmates, years ago when she visited her grandparents in South Korea. It’s a long distance relationship, Seulgi studying International Law in Yonsei, but no one could deny that Wendy was the happiest whenever Seulgi facetimed her, running from everyone and everything in order to pay attention only to her beloved. 

Johnny is a mess but a lovely one, having met his soulmate in the busy streets of New York. The other boy, one chinese-american Qian Kun, almost dropped his bag of groceries on the doorstep of the theatre Johnny was performing in. Johnny was running late for rehearsal, but he begged the boy to come back in two hours. Kun agreed. They never left each other since, both moving to Toronto, Johnny successfully starring in indie movies and two very good Netflix shows (three seasons each!) as Kun started working as a chef in Wendy’s family’s restaurant. They say once they hit thirty they want to adopt either a dog, a child or both, Wendy and Seulgi beg to be the godmothers of whichever they choose. 

And they are happy, obviously so, everyone can see that. Both couples are joyous and buoyant in their love. But Mark knows non-soulmate couples that are also happy. Isn’t Irene happy with Junmyeon, didn’t he left almost everything behind for her by moving to Ontario? Isn’t Taeyeon happy with Jessica, despite the fact that Jessica and Tiffany are soulmates but never went beyond being friends? 

But on the other hand, were Mark’s parents happy? The real ones, biological parents. Because he grew up calling Jongdae ‘dad number two’, but Minseok’s soulmate, the woman that birthed Mark, was left in Korea and Mark barely knows her. Minseok left Korea and all of that behind, following his own path that led to the doorstep of one Jongdae with a bright smile and a penchant for being the good, kind stepdad that lets you play in your Nintendo DS until 11pm. 

So maybe soulmates aren’t true perfect happiness, maybe it depends on him if he wants to be happy. Maybe soulmates being real is the shittiest thing to have ever happened, don’t we deserve the chance to make our own destiny, of falling for whoever we want to fall? Doesn’t it make much more sense to love because we want to love rather than because some cosmic declaration says we are meant to love someone? 

Later, letting the air of early spring nights cool his thoughts and his bones, shivering inside a too large hoodie, Mark pretends he doesn’t listen when his phone makes a tiny little ping, a new notification popping on the screen. He ignores it, letting the music in his headphones numb him until all he knows are melodies, lyrics and the desire to fly away into the night sky. 

_ ‘Lee Taeyong wants to contact you, do you wish to contact him? Yes / No’ _

A shiver, then a sigh, early morning. Mark turns over, morning sun bathing his room in golden glee. He stares at the screen with the feeling that something bad will happen if he keeps ignoring the message, as if he had the other’s life in his hand just because a stupid soulmate finder app tells him this mysterious man wants to contact him. 

_ ‘Yes / No’ _

He watches the screen throughout breakfast, hearing his parents speak as if they were in another room and not just a chair away. 

“Are you happy?” he asks Jongdae when he is washing the dishes, ready to go to work and drop Mark in the university’s doors. 

“Wow, that’s a big question,” the man answers, eyebrows shooting up over a strange smile. “I’m not happy with the electricity bill, neither with my car’s radiator that keeps breaking down, nor with how high the prices of meat is, or how native people are being treated by the government, or with how far is South Korea and how I wish it was easier to travel to see my mother.” He dries the last of the cutlery, smiling proudly, and turns to Mark with a soft smile “But with your dad, I’m the happiest I have ever been. Is this about the soulmate app?” 

“Yes,” Mark answers, well beyond the point of being ashamed about hesitating so much. 

“Well, it’s your choice,” Jongdae says with a shrug. “Soulmates exist for a reason, but some of them are better as our friends, like Irene and me. Give your soulmate a chance, maybe you will fall for him, maybe you will just want him as a friend and both of them are good choices” he approaches Mark and places a hand on his shoulder, “Not every soulmate is meant to be kissed on the lips, some are meant to be kissed on the cheek.” 

_ ‘ _ **_Yes_ ** _ / No’ _

_ ‘Hello Mark! This is your soulmate chat, presented to you by Misfits App.  
_ _ Perfect happiness starts with a hello.’ _

**LTY:  
** _ Hi, is this Mark? _

**ML:**   
_ Yes, it is. Nice to meet you Taeyong. _

**LTY:  
** _ Nice to meet you too, Mark.   
_ _ I don’t want to lie to you, I am so nervous _ . 

Mark smiles, as if he didn’t type his first reply at least 3 times.  
_ I’m nervous too, but I guess that’s good right? _

**LTY:**   
_ I guess it is :) _

  
  


Mark’s usual monday to friday schedule starts at 7am when he wakes up, takes a shower, has breakfast with one or both of his dads, depending on their work hours, and then goes to college. Saturdays are easier things, waking up at 10am and eating something light before taking a bike and riding to Wendy’s house to practice music for hours and hours, the passion that had brought them together and made them attempt to start a duet that mostly sings in weddings and wedding anniversaries. Then at night Donghyuck often hosts a party in his flat and more often than not that means Sundays don’t start until 4pm and end before 11pm. 

The past week had been hectic at best, erratic in the best of ways. From project deadlines to final exams on Monday and Tuesday, to a wedding on Wednesday and Seulgi’s welcome party on Thursday afternoon, to Johnny and Kun announcing their wedding on Friday night. It’s autumn, so the days are colder and getting shorter by the minute, meaning less time in the daylight to do so many things. 

Mark slept a grand total of fourteen hours the entire week, he counted them, very meticulous, and yet when the alarm’s preppy tune bounced off inside his brain’s walls signaling it was 4:45am, he woke up, groaning like a zombie but still opening his eyes. 

He had to open his eyes to make some coffee in his dad’s fancy coffee maker, drinking it with a sigh as the clock in the wall, a weird antique thing looking like a black and white cat with a tail that moves side to side rhythmically, marks 5:15am (Mark thinks the cat is mocking him, but he is too excited to be bothered by that). 

According to Google, he is a 25 minute drive away from the airport, meaning that if he gets in the car right now he will be there before 6am. He is on time, perfectly on time, so he sneaks his head into his dads’ room and waves at a half asleep Jongdae before taking the car’s keys and running to the black sedan sitting in the driveway. 

“Don’t panic, Mark, don’t panic,” he mutters to himself, pacing the halls of Toronto Pearson International Airport, hands fumbling with the keychains of the house keys. If he had brought his headphones, something tells him he would be listening to Guys by The 1975, maybe because he is muttering it under his breath, walking like a madman from side to side in the exit of Terminal 1. 

It’s 6:05am, Vancouver to Toronto, coming first from Incheon, Seoul, has landed. Mark’s heart is beating madly. 

It’s 6:30am, people are walking through the exit, Cherry Flavoured by The Neighbourhood beams inside his mind, even if it’s early morning. Dumb fool always thinking of music, watching the horizon still dark and yet thinking of a sunset spent doing nothing, lazy and silly and sweet like cherry coke. 

Then he waltzes out, tall and covered in a black hoodie with the logo of AC/DC in it, baggy jeans and a grey face mask covering half of his face. It would be easy to miss him in a crowd dressed like this, but his brown hair sticks cutely in all directions and Mark remembers one too many times seeing that hairstyle in facetimes, the different time zones meaning that some days someone would have to sacrifice sleep hours for the other, Seoul 14 hours ahead of Toronto. 

His cute eyes widen and Mark inhales and exhales. There is a moment of clear hesitation, almost like the crackle of a thunderstorm in the distance, electricity in the air, a sort of painful tug inside, rumbling in between their rib cages, the sound of crunchy leaves in the street, rain falling over the windows of a small house by a lake. 

Is this what it feels to meet your soulmate? Is this how Johnny found Kun, how Seulgi found Wendy, how they danced around each other for just a moment before knowing, sincerely knowing that the person on the other side has a piece of your soul as you do with theirs? 

Wendy once said she felt Seulgi could hear all the songs she had made inside her mind. Kun thought Johnny could taste every dish he ever made and find beauty in them. And perhaps it’s different for everyone, the feeling you get inside your very bones when your body is in close proximity to the heart of the other half of your life. 

Mark smiles, Taeyong pulls down his mask and he is smiling too. 

“Hi, hyung,” he greets, stepping close.

Taeyong doesn’t answer, he just grabs Mark by the shoulders and envelops him in a hug. It shakes Mark to the core, warm and fuzzy and just so comfortable, like he was meant to fit in the space between his arms, leaving him giggling and sobbing like a child, hearing the soft reassuring voice he has come to adore in the past five months. 

“I thought this day would never come” he says and even though Mark doesn’t see it, he knows the elder is smiling.

Even when they pull away there is contact, Taeyong’s hands on Mark’s biceps, Mark’s right hand fisting the fabric of his large hoodie. 

“You are prettier than in the pictures, Mark,” Taeyong says, leaning his head to the side. 

“Don’t say that!” Mark responds, playfully hitting him. 

And then they stay in silence for a moment, eye contact making Mark melt yet he refuses to look away, too lost in those eyes that look like hazelnuts, like the wooden door that leads to paradise.

“I know we just met…” Taeyong starts, trailing off as his arms fall to grab Mark’s hands, “would it be too wrong if I kissed you?”

“No, it could never be wrong,” he barely whispers before he breaks the distance between them and no other words can be said, need to be said, when just a brush of their lips says all the things the soul professes. 

And perhaps it is true that perfect happiness can’t be achieved, soulmates or not everyone has to work for their happiness, it’s not freely given. Yet being soulmates must give some advantage, Mark thinks, sitting on the floor of his room, guitar in hand to play Guys because he refuses to let that song die inside his mind, as Taeyong skims through his collection of vinyls. 

“God, your taste is so good, this is my favourite record ever” Taeyong says, picking Queen’s Night At The Opera with reverent hands. Mark smiles, that’s his favourite record too. 


End file.
